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Confessions of a Helmet-Free Childhood: True-ish Tales of an Analog Upbringing
- Narrated by: Cinnia Curran Finfer
- Length: 1 hr
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Confessions of a Helmet-Free Childhood: True-ish Tales of an Analog Upbringing
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Publisher's summary
"Finfer tells wry, often riveting stories of facing a school bus bully, inadvertently destroying her sister's banana-seat bike, and becoming entangled in scrapes not always of her making." (Publishers Weekly Booklife)
"Finfer delivers 13 vignettes that eloquently capture the essence of childhood." (Kirkus Reviews)
Whether she’s taking a face plant in a second-grade war, lying her way into pet ownership, setting the fondue kit on fire or taking the Fifth after an epic food fight, Confessions of a Helmet-Free Childhood chronicles Cinnia Curran Finfer finding her way through childhood by trial and error - heavy on the error. She wasn’t trying to be funny; it just keeps turning out that way.
Born the second of four girls in New York City, Cinnia’s childhood played out in five different grade schools and three different high schools in New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Illinois. Being small for her age, far from athletic, and a perpetual new kid with an unusual name made for quite a ride. Like any kid, she made bad calls, big mistakes, and sometimes simply found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Hey, a lot happens between “Go out and play” and “Be home before dark”.
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Great story of family changes
- By Peter on 02-14-12
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Guys Read: Funny Business
- By: Jon Scieszka, Adam Rex, Christopher Curtis, and others
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman, Kate DiCamillo, John Keating, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 117
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4 out of 5 stars 84
Funny Business is based around the theme of - what else? - humor, and if you’re familiar with Jon and the Guys Read Library, you already know what you’re in store for: 10 hilarious stories from some of the funniest writers around. Before you’re through, you’ll meet a teenage mummy; a kid desperate to take a dip in the world’s largest pool of chocolate milk; a homicidal turkey; parents who hand over their son’s room to a biker; and more.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Awesome super funny
- By sacha on 10-03-16
By: Jon Scieszka, and others
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'50sVille Vol. 2
- By: Dr. Paul A. Ibbetson
- Narrated by: Meral Mathews
- Length: 2 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story5 out of 5 stars 26
Imagine a town where the people perpetually live in the 1950s, a place where time has all but stopped and where everyone loves his family, job, and life. In this strange place, only a select few people ever leave the city limits and even then, they leave reluctantly. This is what fifteen and a half year old Benjamin Granault faces as, through a string of amazing events, he finds himself living in a town where he can never talk about modern technology or current events, a place where being an outsider can cost a person his life and being part of the community may very well cost more.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Getting Good
- By Hepcat89 on 11-15-20
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A Girl Named Zippy
- Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 542
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 375
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 379
When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of 300 people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period - people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully written, beautifully read.
- By shopgirl on 03-06-08
By: Haven Kimmel
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All but Normal
- Life on Victory Road: A Memoir
- By: Shawn Thornton
- Narrated by: Shawn Thornton
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
After waking from a coma following a car crash, Beverly Thornton's once sweet and gentle disposition had been replaced by violent mood swings, profanity-laced tirades, and uncontrollable fits of rage. Inside the Thornton house, floors and countertops were piled high with dirty laundry and garbage because Bev was unable to move well enough to clean. Dinners were a Russian roulette of half-cooked meat, spoiled milk, and foods well past their expiration dates.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Should be in the religous category
- By Shreridan on 10-24-16
By: Shawn Thornton
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She Got Up Off the Couch
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 274
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 186
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 187
When we last saw Zippy, she was oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her home. Her mother, Delonda, had literally just gotten up off the couch and ridden her rickety bicycle down the road. Her dad was off somewhere, gambling or "working." And Zippy was lost in her own fabulous world of exploring the fringes of Moorland, Indiana.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great fun !!
- By Kim on 04-20-11
By: Haven Kimmel
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Hope's Boy
- A Memoir
- By: Andrew Bridge
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 81
When Andrew Bridge was seven years old, he and his mother - a mentally unstable woman who loved her child more than she could care for him - slid deeper and deeper into poverty, until they were reduced to scavenging for food in trash bins. Welfare officials did little more than threaten to take Andrew away, until a social worker arrived with a police escort and did just that while his mother screamed on the sidewalk.
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4 out of 5 stars
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American spilling his guts
- By Anthony on 01-12-12
By: Andrew Bridge
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The Ride of Our Lives
- Roadside Lessons of an American Family
- By: Mike Leonard
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Mike Leonard is a lucky man. It’s not everyone who gets parents like Jack and Marge. At 87, Jack is a pathological optimist with an inexhaustible gift of gab. Marge, Jack’s bride of 60 years, though cut from the same rough bolt of Irish immigrant cloth, is his polar opposite - pessimistic and proud of it. What was their son, Mike, thinking when he took a sabbatical from his job with NBC News so he could pile these two world-class originals along with three of his grown kids and a daughter-in-law into a pair of rented RVs and hit the road for a month?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hilarious!!!
- By TurtlesRMe on 03-06-07
By: Mike Leonard
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I'm Down
- A Memoir
- By: Mishna Wolff
- Narrated by: Mishna Wolff
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 180
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 125
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Story4 out of 5 stars 127
Mishna Wolff grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father, a white man who truly believed he was black. "He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esque sweater, gold chains and a Kangol---telling jokes like Redd Fox, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson. You couldn't tell my father he was white. Believe me, I tried," writes Wolff. And so from early childhood on, her father began his crusade to make his white daughter down.
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1 out of 5 stars
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I stopped listening an hour in....
- By Casey on 11-07-09
By: Mishna Wolff
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Language Arts
- By: Stephanie Kallos
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4 out of 5 stars 56
Charles Marlow is a Seattle English teacher who instructs his students to expand their worlds through language. Lately, however, with one child off to college and the pressure from his ex-wife to make plans for their severely autistic son who's about to age out of the system, he prefers the company of the ghosts he turns up in the storage boxes in his crawl space.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The beauty of the broken
- By SJ Evans on 04-27-18
By: Stephanie Kallos
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Chicken Soup for the Child's Soul: Character-Building Stories to Read with Kids Ages 5 - 8
- By: Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen
- Narrated by: Leslie Bellair
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Today's children live in a world filled with adventure, mental stimulation, topical issues, and personal challenges. The values they learn now, between the ages of 5 and 8, will shape the rest of their lives. Through this collection of heartfelt true stories about family ties, helping neighbors, and lasting friendships, children will see how other kids their age have learned valuable lessons from the choices they've made - and most of all, they will realize that they are not alone in dealing with some of the difficult issues in their lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My kids love these
- By shrockin on 12-22-15
By: Jack Canfield, and others
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I'll Be There
- By: Holly Goldberg Sloan
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Emily Bell believes in destiny. To her, being forced to sing a solo in the church choir - despite her average voice - is fate: because it's while she's singing that she first sees Sam. At first sight they are connected. Sam Border wishes he could escape, but there's nowhere for him to run. He and his little brother, Riddle, have spent their entire lives constantly uprooted by their unstable father. As Sam and Riddle are welcomed into the Bells' lives, they witness the warmth and protection of a family for the first time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Needs to be a film!
- By TreasureHunter on 06-25-16
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Stories I'd Tell in Bars
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster, John Fletcher
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 362
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 323
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Story4 out of 5 stars 320
Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Older, but not wiser, Lancaster goes back to basics in this hilarious essay collection about everything from taking community policing classes to accidentally getting high with her waiter after a fancy dinner. These are the tales she'd tell if she met you in a bar... if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to a bar. Offering advice ranging from how to remain happily married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose already to not creating An Incident at the cheese counter during an attempt at Whole30, she's you, only louder.
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2 out of 5 stars
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self absorbed
- By D D H on 06-15-19
By: Jen Lancaster
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Rats Saw God
- By: Rob Thomas
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
By his senior year, Steve York has come through the worst two years of his life. His parents have divorced, and his girlfriend has betrayed him. Worse yet, after running away to live with his mother in San Diego, forays into the drug culture have turned his A-average into a thing of the past. Steve's only hope to graduate on time and avoid summer school is to write a 100-page paper for his guidance counselor. Unfortunately, he has to write about something he knows, and all he knows well are the last two years of his life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Real
- By Mary on 06-26-09
By: Rob Thomas
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Color Me In
- By: Natasha Díaz
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
Growing up in an affluent suburb of New York City, 16-year-old Nevaeh Levitz never thought much about her biracial roots. When her Black mom and Jewish dad split up, she relocates to her mom's family home in Harlem and is forced to confront her identity for the first time. Nevaeh wants to get to know her extended family, but because she inadvertently passes as white, her cousin thinks she's too privileged, pampered, and selfish to relate to the injustices African Americans face on a daily basis.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mixed feelings about this book
- By Rachel Kohlbrenner on 02-02-20
By: Natasha Díaz
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Too Close to the Falls
- A Memoir
- By: Catherine Gildiner
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 119
Welcome to the childhood of Catherine McClure Gildiner. It is the middle of the 1950s in Lewiston, New York, a small and sleepy American town very near Niagara Falls. No one is divorced. Mothers wear high heels to the beauty salon and children pop Pez candy and swing from vines over a local gorge. But at the tender age of four, it becomes clear to her Cathy's parents that their rambunctious daughter is no ordinary child and they soon put her "to work" at her father's pharmacy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant and funny and touching.
- By Kindle Customer on 11-07-19
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Double Take
- By: Kevin Michael Connolly
- Narrated by: Kevin Michael Connolly
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 21
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 19
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 20
Double take: a rapid or surprised second look, either literal or figurative, at a person or situation whose significance has not been completely grasped at first. Kevin Michael Connolly is a 23-year-old man who has seen the world in a way most of us never will. Whether swarmed by Japanese tourists at Epcot Center as a child or holding court at the X Games on his mono-ski, Kevin Connolly has been an object of curiosity since the day he was born without legs.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Love this story so much
- By R. MCRACKAN on 07-04-18
What listeners say about Confessions of a Helmet-Free Childhood: True-ish Tales of an Analog Upbringing
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- K. D. Ross
- 07-16-20
Breezy recollection of youth in a simpler time
Narrated by the author, Cinnia Curran Finfer, this collection of short vignettes paints a descriptive picture of childhood before the advent of smartphones and web surfing.
Each chapter serves as an object for a time capsule of yesteryear. And through the easy, invitation of the narrator's voice, they transport us to that time, just a few decades away.
For those who were raised during this time period, the tales may evoke similar memories from the listener/reader - jogging one of their own foggy remembrances into focus once again.
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